Cinema: Back to Pompeii

In Hollywood, every smog used to have its silver lining, but nowadays the lining is not even tinfoil. With TV competition rampant, and enough talent unemployed to fill a dozen De Mille epics. Hollywood is escaping into the past. Aging cine-moguls such as Mack Sennett, King Vidor and Adolph Zukor are publishing reminiscences about the good old days, studios are remaking old hits (e.g., The Covered Wagon and Ben Hur), production schedules read like mail-order history (Demetrius and the Gladiators, Prince Valiant). But the most startling forays into the past occur at Hollywood's...

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